The Fishermen is the highly acclaimed debut novel by University of Nebraska (Lincoln) creative writing professor Chigozie Obioma. It tells the tale of four brothers living in the small town of Akure in Nigeria who one day skip school to go fishing at a forbidden river nearby. Their transgression is discovered and they are punished by their parents, but what weighs most heavily upon them is the prediction of a madman they met at the river that the oldest brother is destined to be killed by one of his siblings.

The story is simply told but mythic in its depth. Some see in it the Cain and Abel story retold; some see an allegorical rendering of recent Nigerian history; and others see it as a story about the power of stories. It is probably all of that and more.

“Entrancing…. Its rising tension and poetic grace make this one of the finest novels to come from Africa in years.”–Wall Street Journal “Best Books of 2015”

“In its exploration of the murderous and the mysterious, the mind’s terrors and a vibrant Africa, this debut novel is heir to Chinua Achebe.”–New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice

“Engrossing…. [Obioma’s] language is rich and hypnotic, and nearly every page is filled with an unexpected and perfectly rendered description…. This is a dark and beautiful book by a writer with seemingly endless promise.”–Michael Schaub, NPR

“[A] darkly mythic first novel [that] feels as if it might predate modernity itself…. It’s hard to know where Obioma…can go with his literary career after this pitiless, unstinting start…. Perhaps he will become a kind of African Cormac McCarthy, committed to a stark vision of life in which our pretensions to civilization are forever held up and exposed as skin deep: that what really runs us is deeper down, in the blood.”–Kevin Nance, USA Today (3/4 stars)

“A striking, controlled and masterfully taut debut…. The tale has a timeless quality that renders it almost allegorical and it is the more powerful for it.”–Financial Times

Finalist for the 2015 Man Booker Award.